Every year, the Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh), on behalf of the MAPh Foundation, invites artists to submit photo-based media, including analogue and digital photography created over the last year, for consideration. Rhana Devenport (ONZM, Director, Art Gallery of South Australia) and Michael Cook (Brisbane-based contemporary photographic artist of Bidjara heritage) joined MAPh Director Anouska Phizacklea to select the winner and three honourable mentions from a shortlist of sixty-six exceptional works.
Recently, Sydney-based artist Anne Zahalka was announced as the winner of the 2023 William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize for her work Kunstkammer, 2023. She was awarded $30,000, and the work was acquired into MAPh’s significant collection of Australian photographs.
“This work challenges assumptions about photography and how immersive and experiential it can be on a grand scale,” said Phizacklea. “Zahalka references the trompe-l’oeil traditions of illusionary space in the creation of a photographic installation that engages audiences in the artist’s process, offering greater insight into their working life.”
Anna Zahalka, Kunstkammer, 2023, pigment inkjet prints on forex, furniture, archival materials, paper, 358 × 430 × 288cm. Courtesy the artist and Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh), Melbourne
In her artist statement, Zahalka notes: “Based on the early painting technique known as trompe l’oeil where architectural spaces, still-lives, or objects are rendered in painstaking realism, this ‘trick of the eye’ is replaced here with the ‘camera’s eye’ to seamlessly replicate my studio in a scale of 1:1.
“Rendered as two-dimensional photographic reproductions mounted onto a three-dimensional structure, this recreation offers both a physical and illusionary experience of my workspace. The ‘Kunstkammer’ as I have called it, is installed with actual objects and ephemera – postcards, invitations, books, a maquette of the studio construction, the pin board from my studio with preparatory sketches, as well as the physical folders containing research and documentary material in the development of work.”
In addition to the main prize, the following artists received Honourable Mentions: Ayman Kaak for The rug almost flew off, 2023; Craig Tuffin for No. 6, 5–7 (Diptych), 2023, from the series The end of the beginning; and Justine Verga for End of violet (170Y50.5M3C), 2022–23, from the series End of violet.
The William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize finalist exhibition is on view at the Museum of Australian Photography (MAPh), Melbourne, until 12 November 2023. One artist will also be selected for the $10,000 Wai Tang Commissioning Award, which will coincide with the 2024 Bowness Photography Prize exhibition season. The Smith & Singer People’s Choice Award will be voted by the public, with the recipient receiving $5,000.
